ReCore and Mighty No.9 dev Comcept bought by Level-5

Comcept, developer of 2016 Microsoft exclusive ReCore and the Kickstarter backed Mighty No.9 has been acquired by Level-5.

In a statement translated by Gematsu, Comcept as it stands will close as a studio with founder Kenji Inafune taking responsibility for any projects that are still in development.

The statement also says that a new subsidary will be formed called Level-5 Comcept which will comine the philosiphies and that staff from that studio will be made up of talent from both companies. This does mean that there will be some job losses. The newley formed studio currrently employs 15 people and will be based in Osaka, Japan.

"I had the feeling that I wanted to be like Hino since around the time I was at Capcom," said Inafune, who believes the merger will be one of collaberative creation as opposed to a studio directed by new parent company Level-5. Titles are already being worked on with Level-5 Comcept announcing Dragon Colonies for iOS and Android, which is due for release in 2018.

Comcept released the spiritual success to the Mega Man franchise, Mighty No.9 in 2016 following a Kickstarter campaign that raised over $4 million. The game however was not well recieved critically and the studio had issues with delays. The most recent game for Comcept, ReCore, was released as an Xbox and Windows 10 exclusive in 2016. The project, which was made with Armature Studio and Asobo Studios was conceived by Inafune.

Level-5 are best known for the Ni No Kuni and Professor Layton franchises, but the company have also been working on the Yo-Kai Watch series of games. The company was founded in 1998 by Akihiro Hino and has carved out a repuation as a premier RPG developer in Japan.